I have mixed feelings on this news. Of course every claim should be investigated. But how many are called in through spite? How many children have been unjustly removed without evidence from parents homes through these very call-ins? How many deaths in foster homes have been occurring where they place these children? How number of victims are being created for each victim protected? CPS is a mess! I wonder how many more supporters of this page these investigations may bring? While I Love the support of this page, and we cannot create change without numbers. I wish none of you felt the need to be here and do not look forward to the new wave of parents that may be brought here by this. Respectfully, Thomas Fidler CPS discovers 6,000 uninvestigated abuse allegations Arizona’s Child Protective Services division has uncovered thousands of uninvestigated child abuse allegations dating back to 2009, Department of Economic Security director Clarence Carter said Thursday morning. Carter said the allegations were made to the state’s child-abuse hotline and came as CPS caseloads were on the rise. In total, 6,000 of the abuse allegations were “misclassifed” as “not investigated,” meaning a staffer in the agency’s call center determined the situation did not warrant a formal investigation. Of the 6,000 reports, 5,000 have come into the state hotline in the last 20 months. Carter, who has been in his post for three years, said CPS caseloads are 77 percent above standards. When he presented the startling findings to Gov. Jan Brewer, Carter said the governor’s reaction was “unprintable.” “I have never seen my boss with such a combination of anger and sadness,” Carter said. He said he had not felt a loss of support from the governor, but “I did get the sense she is holding me responsible.” In addition to doing his own review of the situation, Carter said he has asked the state Department of Public Safety to review the process the agency has used to classify cases. A DPS spokesman said the agency has not been “formally” requested to “enter” into anything involving CPS. The findings will be the topic of a legislative oversight hearing this afternoon in the state Senate. (See azcentral for coverage.) “This has to come out,” said state Rep. Kate Brophy McGee, R-Phoenix and co-chair of the oversight committee on CPS. “I am hopeful it’s the start to finding solutions to what the heck is going on.” “I’ve just had this horrible feeling that something is so wrong, and has been so for so very long,” she said. “This seems to be a systemic issue, and maybe this is the start of unwinding the problems. We can fix them. This is an enormous finding, an enormous one.” The uninvestigated cases came to light this month when the head of CPS’ Office of Child Welfare Investigation looked into an abuse allegation that had been classified as not being worthy of investigation. He found the case indeed warranted further examination, which prompted him to sample cases with a similar classification. He determined the problem was widespread and the cases merited further inquiry. Brewer’s spokesman did not immediately respond to a request to interview the governor or a member of her staff. Brewer is attending the Republican Governor’s Association conference in Scottsdale, where many of the nation’s GOP governors are meeting. As part of his budget request for the next fiscal year, Carter has requested 444 new workers and more than $115 million to reduce caseloads and keep pace with the unabated growth in the number of abused and neglected children entering foster care. The Department of Economic Security’s budget request for the coming fiscal year comes as the agency is training and deploying 200 new Child Protective Services case managers and support staff that lawmakers approved last session, but anticipates growth of 7 to 8 percent in the number of kids in care — now 15,132 — over the next two years. Arizona continues to be an outlier among states, with national statistics showing the state with by far the largest percentage increase in foster-care population. State child-welfare officials attribute the growth to an increase in reports to a statewide hotline. In his request submitted to Brewer in September, Carter said more children would be leaving foster care than entering the system by 2016. Brewer uses state agency budget requests to form a spending plan, which she will release in January, and they are developed with guidance from her office. Brewer has identified CPS as a top priority. She created a task force in 2011 in response to the brutal deaths of children who had been the subject of prior CPS reports. Legislation in 2012, following a task-force recommendation, created a separate investigative unit for the most serious abuse cases. According to the budget documents, the Office of Child Welfare Investigations, led by a Phoenix homicide detective, has investigated just 17 percent of such cases. Carter is seeking 50 additional staffers for the office, which has 28 law-enforcement-trained investigators and supervisors and is charged with investigating cases where criminal conduct is alleged. Nationwide, the number of children in foster care has gone down dramatically, along with reports of abuse and neglect. In Arizona and in the U.S., about two-thirds of all child-welfare cases involved neglect. Check back with azcentral for updates. Republic reporters Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Alia Beard Rau contributed to this article. azcentral/news/politics/articles/20131121cps-discovers-uninvestigated-abuse-cases.html?sf19740734=1&nclick_check=1
Posted on: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 19:16:05 +0000
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